Monday, October 17, 2005
SUNDAY MASS
Another one's come and gone. On the plus side...I went to 12 today. The pews looked a little fuller, and the choir is singing again now that summer vacations are behind us. Some of their choices were uplifting. It's good to have talented singing during Mass once again. The weak substitute we have during the summer when the congregation sings lackluster hymns is a poor second. I appreciate my parish choir.
The homily was interesting. Father talked about the balancing act of serving the faith on one hand and the state on the other, and what happens when things get out of balance. He didn't give us any answers, but he did frame the questions rather well. It's good to know that our visiting priest is thinking about the contradictions. He held the Host and chalice up a little longer at the consecration while the bells continued to ring, making the point that this is the peak moment of the Mass, as those bells do so well. When he did this, I wondered if he had been thinking about the emphasis Pope Benedict is placing on the Eucharist being the summit of Catholic life.
Sigh. On the negative side...the "Parish Stewardship Assessment Guide: Circle the number that best fits your perception of your parish" survey was passed out today, with 19 questions, and answer choices ranging from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. I imagine most of you have seen them. If only I hadn't been through this in a parish once before, back in the 80s. Back when the "Gift" program and "Christ Renews His Parish" were making the rounds of my former liberal parish, and I got caught up in the notion that I would only be a good Catholic if I got involved in parish life. It nearly cost me my faith back then. I'm in my present parish as a refugee, though after 15 years of membership, I guess I'm a parishioner by now.
When the survey was announced from the pulpit this afternoon by a member of the parish, immediately after the homily, I mentally backed up a little farther from Roman Catholicism, reminding myself that I didn't have to participate, that I could still be Catholic if all I did was seek the sacraments and attend Mass, that it wasn't necessary to panic. Not yet. But tonight I gave the first serious thought to looking at Orthodoxy, and at how very far short I am of the standards I would have to try to live up to if I made the switch. And how totally foolish I would feel walking into an Orthodox Divine Liturgy by myself and not knowing anyone there. The last forty years of Roman Catholicism have taken their toll. And as if it wasn't enough just to see it at the parish level, the stuff I've been uncovering in research is adding to the price.
But there are other thoughts as well. That research is teaching me a new gratitude for those sacraments, and its teaching me that I need to treasure them each time I'm present because there is a danger that they will be taken away, that there will no longer be priests who make them possible, if the situation in our seminaries and in our theology doesn't change.
My husband wasn't able once again to bring himself to attend Mass. That communion service we witnessed two weeks ago may have been the last straw for him.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for me.
